February 11, 2005

How Turkish are the Anatolians?

The Anatolians are the ethnic descendants of both the indigenous populations of Asia Minor who converted to Islam (and were thus spared from the genocidal campaign of the Ottomans and Kemalists during the early 20th century), and also of non-indigenous populations from the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central Asia. From Central Asia came the Turks, who were the main agent for the Islamization and during the last century Turkification of Asia Minor.

To what extent are the Anatolians descended from Central Asian Turks? The study of Cinnioglu et al. (2004) discovered an occurrence of 3.4% of Mongoloid Y-chromosomal haplogroups in Anatolia (haplogroups Q, O, and C).

According to Tambets et al. (2004) the occurrence of Mongoloid haplogroups in present-day Central Asian Turkic Altaic speakers (Altaians) is at least 40%, with an additional 10% which might belong to haplogroup O which was not tested in this study. According to Zerjal et al. (2002) this percentage is for various Turkic speakers: Kyrgyz (22%), Dungans (32%), Uyghurs (33%), Kazaks (86%), Uzbeks (18%).

It is clear that the percentage of Mongoloid ancestry among the Turkic speakers is very variable, yet it is clear that the Proto-Turks must have been partially Mongoloid in lieu of the fact that all current Turkic speakers possess some Mongoloid admixture. The average of the six Central Asian population samples listed above is 38.5% and may serve as a first-order estimate of the paternal contribution of early Turks, who (judging by their modern descendants in Central Asia) were more Caucasoid paternally and more Mongoloid maternally.

Using the figure of 38.5%, the paternal contribution of Turks to the Anatolian population is estimated to about 11%. In lieu of the approximation, allowing for 33% relative error in either direction for both the true frequency of Mongoloid lineages in Anatolia and in early Turks, we obtain a range of 6-22%. It would thus appear that the Turkish element is a minority one in the composition of the Anatolians, but it is by no means negligible.

6 comments:

Unfortunately this post has lots of mistakes as well as the research you posted. First of all, there's no research regarding the genetics of Oghuz Turks and Anatolian Turks comes from Oghuz branch. If Oghuz were Mongoloid people and if they are assimilated in Anatolia how come Oghuz Turks in Iran, Azerbaijan and North Iraq has no difference? They all look similar to me. Also recorded history says there were MANY Turkic people with blond hair and blue/green eyes. Even original Kırghiz people described this way in Chinese sources.

Another mistake (i want to believe it's mistake) of this research is comparing Anatolian Turks to most distant Turkic people, who highly mixed with Turks. If it was honest research it must have compared Anatolian Turks to other Oghuz Turks. Not Kazakhs or Kırghiz.

Yet another mistake on your article is comparing Dungans with Anatolians. Dungans are Muslim Chinese people, not even related to Turks.

I can go on and on to prove my point. There's extensive records regarding these subjects and i find written history more reliable.

And i suggest you to concentrate your energy on proving how Greeks are not highly Turkified people, how hundreds of thousands of Christian Karamanlis (i.e Orthodox Turks that were settled in Central Anatolia by Byzantine Empire before 1071) are actually Greek and such subjects.

If you can do what i say, instead of trying to prove opposite of well documented history, maybe then i may think just because you have high cheek bones, dark hair, almond shaped eyes and so Turkic looking that even among nomad Turks of Iran no one would think you are a Greek doesn't mean you are not a Greek...

Also recorded history says there were MANY Turkic people with blond hair and blue/green eyes. Even original Kırghiz people described this way in Chinese sources.

These were Turkified Indo-Europeans (Iranians/Tocharians). The original Altaic speakers were similar to Mongols but they assimilated Indo-European speakers during their western expansion.

The Turks, when they arrived in Anatolia were certainly not fully Mongoloid, but rather variable Caucasoid-Mongoloid mixes. Over the years they became more Caucasoid as they admixed with native Anatolians (Greeks, Armenians, and others).

The problem with that theory occurs when you compare Iranians and Turks. Turks in Iran are still white and totally similar to Turks in Anatolia, also Greeks who have features like you in Greece. While majority of Persians are dark colored and dark haired.

So the theory that claims Turks were initially Mongoloid and became Caucasoid as they traveled has many problems. The other problem is when people who tries to prove that Turks are not original Turks is that obviously no ethnicity except people such as Aborigines have one common root. It's like claiming Russians aren't Russians because they are mixed with Turkic people. Another problem is very same people becoming so defensive when their roots questioned. Like Greeks about Karamanlis subject or Bulgars when original Bulgars being Turkic mentioned...

Having said all these things, of course i do not claim Turks haven't mixed with others when they settled in Anatolia (i highly doubt if Turks were mixed before they come Anatolia though, since it's not so likely that nomads and settled people would marry each other). Though i would also like to point out that Anatolia was already started to be Turkified before Seljuks and Anatolian population was not so high because of wars that lasted for centuries between Byzantines-Persians (actually Byzantines is a term invented by Western historians, they never called themselves anything but Romans, by Arabs and Turks they were called Rums because of that). We know even Byzantine Empire was dependent on Turks in Anatolia and Rumelia (Vardariots and Turcopouloi) as soldiers and in 1071 the center of Byzantine Army was Turks...

The last thing i would like to add is you don't hesitate calling Anatolians as Greeks but you do call Turks as Anatolians, as you may know Greeks weren't indigenous people of Anatolia and actually Anatolia was anachronism of Greece for a long period. Within time Anatolians were Hellenized but they were certainly not Greek, if you say genes are the most important factor that makes a nation. So, if you are claiming that Turks are Anatolians, then you must call Greeks as Anatolians too, because there's simply no difference between Hellenization and later Turkification of Anatolia...

Turks in Iran are still white and totally similar to Turks in Anatolia, also Greeks who have features like you in Greece. While majority of Persians are dark colored and dark haired.

That is a non-argument. It's like trying to infer the racial type of Spniards by noting that Peruvians and Columbians are similar. Sure they are, but they reprsent similar mixtures, not the original type of the Spaniards.

The other problem is when people who tries to prove that Turks are not original Turks is that obviously no ethnicity except people such as Aborigines have one common root.

You are making the mistake of assuming that only Turks were nomads. However, there were nomadic Iranian speakers formerly in places where Turks now dominate, and I also really see no reason why farmers could turn nomad, just as nomads could turn farmer.

PS: I don't believe modern Anatolians are synonymous with "Turks". Sure, they may all be citizens of the Turkish Republic, and thus, they are "Turks" in a civic sense, but they are certainly not Turks in an ethnic sense, and if a Turkish ethnic identity has been created among Anatolian Muslims that is fairly recent historically, and incomplete.

"PS: I don't believe modern Anatolians are synonymous with "Turks". Sure, they may all be citizens of the Turkish Republic, and thus, they are "Turks" in a civic sense, but they are certainly not Turks in an ethnic sense, and if a Turkish ethnic identity has been created among Anatolian Muslims that is fairly recent historically, and incomplete."then what about greeks? they have alomost 15 different y haplogroups in their dna. which one is the real greek haplogroup?

its not proved that first Turks were 100% mongoloids. even Göktürk khagans described red-haired by chinese sources. first Turks were confederation of many asiatic tribes...some of them were heavily caucasoids and some of them were mongoloids. and the western Turks such as the Pechenegs, Kypchaks, Oghuz, Khazar, Uz, etc. were heavily caucasoids, even kypchaks called "polovets=blonde" by the russians. also, Oghuz Turks intermarried with iranian nomads in central asia, and they were maximum 20% mongoloid when they migrating to anatolia. the Oghuz Turks on earth; Turks, Turkmens, Qashqais, Gagauz, Meshketians, Azeris, etc. are heavily caucasoid people. the Oghuz invaders were Turkmens, not dolgans or koryaks from siberia. and if you compare Turkmenistan and Turkey, you will find that central asian/turkmen impact to anatolia is much more bigger. there were 655.8000 nomadic Turkoman family (which means at least 3-3.5 million) in anatolia in 16.century according to ottoman archival datas. and even many Turks already settled in that time.source of the Turkic migration to anatolia is Turkmenistan/Khorasan/Seljuks, not siberians. and perhaps you dont know but most Kazaks are originally mongol people, they began to speak kychak turkish. and Kyrgyz people heavily mixed with yeniseians in yenisei region before they migrated to today's kyrgyzstan. our ancestors were Turkmens, not han chinese or chukchis from siberia. and yes, most modern anatolian are Turks. we do not care how much we mixed with other people, since we are nazis, but our ancestors were non-racist nomads from nature.

A lot of baseless assertions from Pecheneg/Kaygysyz/Arslan Giray (no doubt that they are one and the same person) again (actually he is repeating the same stuff all the time). He is making a lot of strong assertions without providing any evidence. A little close examination reveals the falsity and weakness of his arguments. I suggest him to grow up and read some literature of genetics, craniology, archaeology and history (not pseudo) and also to respond to the arguments themselves rather than to the straw men of them. This will be my last post to him if he does not respond.

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